Day 12

Fruit/veggie day.  I had jury duty today.  Packed up the remaining pepper/onion/carrot mix from the fajitas, and threw an apple in the bag and called it good, hoping there would be a microwave available for the pepper mix.  I ate the apple for lunch, and ended up being dismissed before eating the pepper mix, so it came home with me.  An inspiration struck me on the way home - why not throw the pepper mix into some vegetable stock, heat it up and call it soup?  So I did.  8oz of stock + leftover pepper mix = Tri-Pepper Soup.  Then, as I was eating the soup, I was reminded of simple, humble onion soup.  Since onion is a free thing that I can have any day, including milk days, I decided to play around and come up with a purely free onion soup for milk days.  Not that milk days need any help, mind you, but it's nice to have for bringing to work so I can actually have lunch with the coworkers.  It's no French Onion Soup, since I can't have the beef broth or the bread or the cheese, but this turned out pretty well and will definitely do.

I didn't get much sleep last night, and it wasn't the best sleep - probably anxiety for the jury duty today.  After I got home (before the pepper soup), I just passed out for a little while.  Sitting around all day waiting (I was never called up), with nothing to do but sit and wait (and rotate the spheres), really sucks the life out of you.  Missed the 4pm rotation - slept right through it.  Oops.  I feel better now though!  And that soup was really good!!!

Back to milk tomorrow, with onion soup in tow!  Ooh, I could probably make a creamy onion soup on milk days by replacing some of the water with milk...

Free Onion Soup - may be consumed on any day
1 sweet onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp honey
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp dried basil
1 Tbsp dried rosemary
handful chopped fresh cilantro
2 tsp sea salt
1/2 cup white wine
2 cups water

Cut off ends of onion and chop in half, removing outer peel.  Slice to form half-moons.  Heat a large saucepan on medium-high heat.  Add honey and vanilla and allow honey to thin.  Add garlic.  Place a layer of onions in the pot, then sprinkle 1 tsp salt over it, then another layer topped with remainder of salt.  Leave it alone for a little while to let the onions caramelize - it'll take a good 15 minutes.  You want them to be nice and soft - don't worry about the inevitable burning on the bottom of the pan, we'll take care of that.

Add in the basil, rosemary, and cilantro, and stir.  Add in the wine - this will deglaze the bottom of the pan and bring back all those flavors stuck down there.  Allow the wine to completely cook away, stirring frequently.  Finally, add the water and bring to a simmer.  Allow to simmer for about 10 minutes.  Serve.

You can also strain out the onions and herbs and reserve the liquid as a stock for cooking other stuff.